


That Meddling Kid

by KokoScripsit



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Historical Hetalia, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 20:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16204997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KokoScripsit/pseuds/KokoScripsit
Summary: Albania reflects on the events of the Treaty of Versailles, and particularly the confusingdeus ex machinathat came out of nowhere to interfere with a group attempt to kill her with a peace treaty.Well, that should probably beAmerica ex machina.





	That Meddling Kid

They wanted her blood.

It wasn't anything personal, which made it worse in some ways. They weren't mad at her; they didn't fear that she was a danger to them or theirs. It was simply greed that drove them: for all that she was young and weak and poor, for all that so much of what was hers had been destroyed, she still had a few things of value, and they wanted everything of value that there was, and so they planned to take all she had left.

She wishes she could even say that they plotted against her, but no -- they didn't even respect her that much. They just took it for granted that everything she owned and everything she _was_ would end up with one of them. They negotiated among themselves, that was all: discussed ways to apportion what was hers among themselves, and used her fate as a bargaining chip to trade for the fates of other innocent bystanders whose lives were set to be stolen alongside hers.

And they might have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for _that meddling kid._

He appeared to be a few years older than her, and he was clearly more powerful by far, but she knew that he was much younger, quite possibly younger than she could even _remember_ being. She had heard of him, his strange and meteoric rise a rumored curiosity, but she had never seen him in the flesh -- until now.

Until he stepped up in her defense. Until he, a stranger who must be capable of all the same cruelty if he could stand toe to toe with _them_ who called themselves Great and say _no,_ chose to save her life and her freedom (for who knows how much she would ever have been able to recover, had they feasted on her?), for nothing but an ideal.

He wanted to save the world, and here, in the opulent palace of a centuries-dead king, he chose to start with her. 

She wasn't sure she understood why. It would be some time, and a very eventful span at that, before she really had the chance to get to know him.

But Albania would never forget that America had spoken up for her when she needed it most.

**Author's Note:**

> This was based on the real historical negotiations at Versailles at the end of the First World War, and for obvious reasons it's intentionally slanted to Albania's perspective; others can and should view the events differently. It's probably worth mentioning that even if the treaty had gone the way it looked like it was going to go, Albania certainly would have fought back (as, in fact, happened almost immediately afterwards anyway: Italy invaded in spite of the treaty and was decisively repelled), but there's no telling how that could have ended and the European victors did take it for granted that, despite having been neutral in the war, Albania was going to be part of the spoils. 
> 
> To this day, there are still Albanians named in honor of Woodrow Wilson.


End file.
